The St. Joe Company (JOE), a publicly held real estate company, reported a net loss of $2.7 million or $0.03 per share in the fourth quarter of 2010 compared with a net loss of $58.7 million or $0.64 per share in the year-earlier quarter.

Excluding non-recurring items, net gain during fourth quarter 2010 was $0.09 per share beating the Zacks Consensus Estimated net loss of $0.09 per share compared to a net loss of $0.08 in the year-ago quarter.

For the fourth quarter of 2010, total revenues stood at $37.1 million at par with the year earlier quarter and beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $24 million.

For full year 2010, St. Joe reported a net loss of $35.9 million or $0.39 per share compared with a net loss of $130.0 million or $1.42 per share in the year-earlier quarter. Excluding non-recurring items, net loss during the full year was $0.27 per share compared to a net loss of $0.35 in the year-ago quarter.

For the full year 2010, total revenues decreased to $99.5 million from $138.3 million in the year ago period.

During the quarter, St. Joe sold 13 homesites at an average price of $120,000 and 27 homesites at an average price of $50,000 in its residential business segment. The company sold 1.7 acres in Bay County for $425,000 in the commercial business segment.

St. Joe sold 266 acres of rural land during the quarter for $1.5 million. Additionally, St Joe sold 12 mitigation bank credits and generated $0.8 million in the quarter. Forestry revenue was $7.8 million in the fourth quarter of 2010.

For the full year 2010, St. Joe sold 41 homesites at an average price of $ 159,000 and generated $8.7 million and 42 homesites at an average price of $52.000 in the residential business segment.

The company sold 18.4 acres for $4.4 million, including a 10-acre sale to Wal-Mart Stores Inc.(WMT) for $2.5 million. St. Joe sold 606 acres of rural land for $3.0 million. In addition the company sold 21 mitigation bank credits for $1.4 million.

For the full year 2010, Forestry revenue increased to $28.8 million primarily due to increased pricing of saw timber and pulpwood.

At the year-end, St. Joe had $183.8 million of cash and $25.3 million of pledged securities. Total debt outstanding was $54.7 million. In addition, the company had $125 million available under its revolving credit facilities. St. Joe is currently in a defensive mode and continues to reduce capital expenditures to conserve cash.

Capital expenditures for the full year 2010 were $16.1 million, compared with $18.4 million in the year-earlier period. In addition, St. Joe incurred a cash overhead cost of $56.7 million for the full year 2010 compared to $57.6 million in the prior year per period.

St.Joe currently retains a Zacks #3 Rank, which translates into a short-term Hold rating. We are also maintaining our long-term Neutral recommendation on the stock. One of its competitors Rayonier Inc. (RYN) also retains a Zacks #3 Rank, which translates into a short-term Hold rating.